A TOUCHING INCIDENT.–

11. February 2010 by admin.

Just before the advance of the national army towards Richmond, General Sherman’s brigade, consisting of the Thirteenth, Sixty-ninth, and Seventy-ninth New York, and the Second Wisconsin regiments, was encamped near Ball’s Cross-Roads, not far from a church known as Ball’s Church. In the church-yard is the grave of a little child belonging to a Union family by the name of Osborne. The grave is surrounded by a picket fence, upon which there was no inscription. This being observed by Captain Haggerty, of the Sixty-ninth, he went to the trouble of placing upon it a board bearing the age and name of the little one. In a few days the brigade marched for the fatal field of Bull Run, where the gallant Haggerty met a soldier’s fate, while acting as Lieutenant-Colonel of his regiment. After the return of the troops to the Potomac, Ball’s Cross-Roads and the Church were used as outposts, and quite a number of soldiers who were from time to time stationed in the neighborhood, placed additional inscriptions upon the fence commemorative of the departed officer. One of these read as follows:

“Bull Run was where Haggerty was killed. Will they do as much for him as he did for this poor child?”

The incident was related by private B. F. Morgan, of company A, Thirteenth regiment. Mr. M. visited the spot afterwards, in company with the mother of the child, as her escort. She was greatly affected on seeing what had been done.

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